Comments on: Does “Dreaming in Code” suck?

By: Scott Rosenberg’s Wordyard » Blog Archive » Free Dreaming in Code paperbacks for bloggers

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:34:25 +0000

[...] about the book — positive, negative, indifferent, that’s up to you. Go ahead, tell me you think it sucks! Just write about [...]

By: scottberkun.com » How to handle tough cricitism: an example

scottberkun.com » How to handle tough cricitism: an example — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:24:38 +0000

[...] result was an intelligent, respectful, and illuminating discussion than spanned across both blogs. [...]

By: Scott Rosenberg’s Wordyard » Blog Archive » Perfect software? More on Cantrill and Dreaming

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:52:02 +0000

[...] Cantrill has now fleshed out his critique of Dreaming in Code that I recently addressed. I want to thank him for returning to the topic and giving it serious consideration. I’m [...]

By: Karl

Karl — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:04:48 +0000

Scott, I’m 2/3rds of the way thru Dreaming in Code and am enjoying it quite a bit.

I’ll be buying it as a gift for a few folks I know.

I feel this way, however, because I can take myself out of my own shoes.

I tend to think of any piece of media, whether it being books, articles, tv shows, music, whatever, as to be, either intentionally or not, directed towards a certain audience.

No offense to Bryan or yourself, but I don’t think the book was directed towards folks like Bryan or me. That’s not a slag or a criticism. In my world, if I ever participated in such a project, the principals would have been fired. In Bryan’s – where you are far closer to hardware and OS than the typical corporate developer’s – the reality of things is quite different as well, as he attests in his review.

I think you more than make up for that by providing differing and interesting perspectives.

It provides insight on subject matter that is hard to do so – which just happens to be my profession – for folks who don’t have it – and for that – I am very, very thankful.

By: Bryan Cantrill

Bryan Cantrill — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:02:06 +0000

With my apologies again for both the sloppy attack and the delay in substantiating it, my response is here:

http://blogs.sun.com/bmc/entry/on_i_dreaming_in_code

By: David Vydra

David Vydra — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:28:40 +0000

I enjoyed the 2nd part of Brian’s video and frankly I think Brian sincerely cares about our industry and the book did in fact affect him. As an industry we do suck. We are not a mature and predictable industry and we may never become one. Most developers who have shipped successful applications have a hidden fear that they will spend years on a project that will not ship or will not be widely used. Scott, as you pointed out, your views are in fact in agreement with Brian’s and I hope to see his detailed explanation soon.

By: Joel Norvell

Joel Norvell — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:25:58 +0000

Scott,

You must be doing something terribly wrong since large numbers of people actually enjoy this work. Keep it up!

Joel

By: Scott Rosenberg

Scott Rosenberg — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 00:10:24 +0000

OK — thanks — I’ll look forward to it. I think :-)

By: Bryan Cantrill

Bryan Cantrill — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:32:26 +0000

Well, in my defense, I did explain that the fact that the book sucks isn’t really your fault. And yes, I do think you got seriously suckered by the likes of Alan Kay — but you’re right that I was a bit unfair in that I didn’t really flesh out my criticisms of the book in the talk; I owe you that much at least. (And do note that I brought the book up because I had finished it shortly before I gave the talk — and not because I use it as some sort of strawman sidekick.) I’m heads-down at the moment (writing software, of course), but I will (soon) emerge to give Dreaming in Code its due on my blog; please accept my apologies for the delay between bark and bite.